Mrs. Keo lives in Vangsong village with her husband and their four children. She works hard each day, taking care of the young children and weaving skirts on a traditional homemade loom to earn some income for the family’s needs. Her husband works in the upland fields planting and harvesting rice for daily food consumption.
The fall armyworm is an invasive alien pest that has blighted much of southern Africa’s maize crop this year. Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi have all reported widespread outbreaks, and we have seen the trail of destruction throughout many of our program areas. The pest is not so much a worm as a caterpillar, and its common name derives from the way these invaders generally come in overwhelming numbers, giving the appearance of an army crawling and eating their way through a field.
More than 60 percent of the population of Niassa, Mozambique, lives below the national poverty line. Rural areas are even poorer, with no easy access to financial services. World Renew and its partner in this area, Diocese de Niassa, are setting up Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) with the aim of improving access to financing and helping farmers in periods of waiting after planting and of uncertainty about harvest outcomes.
Hamida and her seven siblings moved in with her grandmother after her parents passed away. Her grandmother, however, didn’t earn much, and with eight more mouths to feed, she often ran short of money and the children went to bed hungry. Her income came from collecting branches from a nearby forest and selling it as firewood. Hamida began to help her grandmother sell firewood at the marketplace, and after a while she also decided to drop out of school. They didn’t earn enough money to pay for school fees for all the kids, and Hamida thought attending school was a waste of time because it meant she had less time to help her grandmother sell at the marketplace.
The Thungo family, the Free a Family representative family for Southern Africa, has some big weather news to share: the rains have come!
The need for emergency food assistance has reached unprecedented levels
Do you know what it’s like to be part of a cyclist’s culture? I had no idea until I recently registered for the Sea to Sea ride. In about three months, from June to August, there will be about a hundred riders who will participate in cycling a portion or the entire route from Vancouver to Halifax. Imagine the spirit it takes to cycle day after day for about 100 to 150 kms each day!
Over one million South Sudanese families have already escaped the
For a long time, Rozina was a struggling farmer. Rozina
This year on Wednesday, March 8, communities the world over